Fear of missing out (FOMO): Defin­i­tion, causes and ways out

FOMO, or “fear of missing out”, is a social phe­nomen­on that is closely linked to the di­git­al­isa­tion of our day-to-day lives. More and more people are familiar with this feeling, which can develop into a serious psy­cho­lo­gic­al strain.

Read on to find out where FOMO comes from, what con­sequences it can have, and how you can deal with the fear of missing out yourself by taking a few specific steps.

The term ‘FOMO’—pro­nounced foe-moe—stands for “fear of missing out”, and has been in use for a few years now, pre­dom­in­antly in the media. In everyday language, you’re more likely to hear the term in younger age groups.

FOMO has many different faces and triggers.

Friends’ activ­it­ies: FOMO is often related to our friends’ and ac­quaint­ances’ activ­it­ies that we’re not involved in. This can lead to the fear that we’re being excluded and that we’re not liked by the people that are important to us.

Too many options: However, fear of missing out can also be triggered without our friends being involved, for example by the sheer amount of pos­sib­il­it­ies for our free time. Should I have gone to that other concert? Maybe the other job would have been better?

Staying in the loop: Another cause of FOMO is the endless flow of news that is only a click away at any time thanks to our smart­phones. It’s prac­tic­ally im­possible to always be up to date with ab­so­lutely everything. But people who suffer from fear of missing out feel they need to be, clicking back and forth from newsfeed to online newspaper to messaging app so as not to miss a single trend, de­vel­op­ment or op­por­tun­ity.

FOMO as a concept only emerged in the new mil­len­ni­um in the wake of the spread of social media. The phe­nomen­on is not new, though—it’s as old as humanity itself. The fear of looking back with regret on the road not taken, of having let op­por­tun­it­ies slip by, or having made the wrong decisions, has always affected people.

However, social media has made this fear of missing out more intense and more frequent, since Facebook, Instagram and the rest let us con­tinu­ously in­vest­ig­ate other people’s lives. We see our friends in their new domestic bliss, the ac­quaint­ance who’s quit their 9 to 5 and is now traveling the world, and the online en­tre­pren­eur who already has several million dollars in their bank account by their mid-20s. These digital shop windows tempt us to con­stantly compare our own lives with those of others.

Because of this, our own lives seem might dull and fla­vour­less, and we see ourselves as not having the brilliant life of others. Jealousy arises and our self-esteem plummets. In these cases, we tend to forget or ignore the fact that both friends and strangers alike on these platforms prin­cip­ally or ex­clus­ively present the best side of their everyday lives.

People who feel socially isolated are par­tic­u­larly sus­cept­ible to de­vel­op­ing FOMO when using social media. It could be argued that social media platforms have a positive effect because they provide op­por­tun­it­ies to make new contacts, but studies show that their effect is det­ri­ment­al rather than positive.

Scrolling through countless photos and videos of people cel­eb­rat­ing their ap­par­ently exciting lives will make anyone who isn’t satisfied with their own social life feel lonelier and more isolated. This often leads to an urge to spend more time on social media in the hope of finally feeling more connected. Real re­la­tion­ships very rarely develop in this way, though.

Anyone of any age can suffer from fear of missing out, but the phe­nomen­on is most wide­spread among young people and young adults. Studies from the US suggest that this comes down to this age group’s es­pe­cially high social media usage.

Re­search­ers at Carleton Uni­ver­sity and McGill Uni­ver­sity in Canada dis­covered that FOMO can occur re­gard­less of per­son­al­ity type. Neurotic and ex­tro­ver­ted people are therefore not more at risk of fear of missing out. However, anyone dis­sat­is­fied with their life situation and whose need for love and respect isn’t fulfilled will ex­per­i­ence FOMO more often than the average person.

Sooner or later, everyone ex­per­i­ences the fear of missing out when something exciting happens, and feelings of jealousy when looking at others’ social media feeds arises, and the anxiety of no longer being first choice for our friends might occur too. FOMO is not a mental illness in itself that needs to be treated. It can reach a stressful or even patho­lo­gic­al level, though, with serious im­plic­a­tions for our health.

As fear of missing out and high social media usage are often closely linked, you can easily tell if your fear is taking a worrying course.

• Do you check your social media feeds daily, even when on vacation?
• When doing activ­it­ies with friends, do you think about what, how and on which social media channel you’re going to post af­ter­wards?
• Do you feel restless or nervous if you don’t know what your friends are currently doing?
• Do you feel down if you find out via social media that your friends are doing something without you?
• Do you check your social media feeds while in company or while eating?

If you answered ‘yes’ to one or more of the questions, that is a possible in­dic­a­tion of FOMO. The fear can develop into a patho­lo­gic­al addiction to social media. If you have the feeling that you are addicted to social media, you should seek pro­fes­sion­al psy­cho­lo­gic­al help.

Alongside the many hours that people with FOMO use social networks, fear of missing out can also entail concrete physical and mental effects:

• Con­cen­tra­tion problems
• Inner anxiety
• Depressed mood
• Stress
• Sleeping problems
• Psycho­so­mat­ic com­plaints (headaches, intensive sweating, and similar)

If you notice that you suffer from FOMO, it’s not always necessary to go straight to a therapist. In many cases, the fear can be gotten to grips with using a few simple methods.

1. Offline times: For emergency help, you can download an app, e.g. Space for Android or Space for iOS that will monitor and restrict your social media usage, or even your overall smart­phone usage.

2. Ac­cept­ance: We can satisfy needs, but our desires have no limits. As soon as we've fulfilled one desire, we already have new ones. Accept that you will never have everything you desire in life. Create clarity about your values: What is important to you in life? Then, set your pri­or­it­ies in ac­cord­ance with these, and focus on what makes you lastingly satisfied.

3. Gratitude diary: Sci­entif­ic studies have proven that thankful people are also happier than their con­tem­por­ar­ies. Keep a gratitude diary to train your thank­ful­ness. In this way you not only improve your mood and your life sat­is­fac­tion, but also your sleep, plus you can lower your stress level. It’s enough to write down three things you’re thankful for in a notebook each day. If you use this method regularly, you can fight the root cause of your FOMO.

4. Mind­ful­ness: Anyone who is scared of missing out on something isn’t thinking in the present, but in the past (“I should’ve chosen dif­fer­ently.”) or in the future (“I’ll never achieve this thing that they’ve done in my life.”). Use mind­ful­ness exercises like med­it­a­tion in order to catch yourself when your thoughts stray away from the here and now and set out on imaginary journeys.

5. Friend­ships: Con­sciously take the time to look after re­la­tion­ships in real life. Instead of scrolling through feeds for hours on end in the evening, make plans or call a friend that you haven’t been in touch with recently. Haven’t got many friends, or need a break from people? Take up an old hobby again or learn something new. Go to events where you can meet like-minded people. It’s worth investing time in building up real friend­ships, as they’re one of the best forms of pro­tec­tion against psy­cho­lo­gic­al strain.

The cor­rel­a­tion between FOMO and social media has been analysed more in­tens­ively by sci­ent­ists in the past few years. In the USA, re­search­ers are pursuing the causes and con­sequences of FOMO.

1. Baker, Zachary & Krieger, Heather & LeRoy, Angie: Fear of missing out. Re­la­tion­ships with de­pres­sion, mind­ful­ness, and physical symptoms. In: Trans­la­tion­al Issues in Psy­cho­lo­gic­al Science, 2016/2.
2. Burnell, Kaitlyn & George, Madeleine & Vollet, Justin & Ehren­reich, Samuel & Underwood, Marion: Passive social net­work­ing site use and well-being. The mediating roles of social com­par­is­on and the fear of missing out. In: Cy­ber­psy­cho­logy. Journal of Psychoso­cial Research on Cy­ber­space. 3/2019.
3. Maeng, Sally & J. Arbeau, Kelly: #TheS­truggleIs­Real: Fear of missing out (FoMO) and nomo­pho­bia can, but do not always, occur together. Trinity Western Uni­ver­sity. 2018.
4. Milyavskaya, Marina & Saffran, Mark & Hope, Nora & Koestner, Richard: Fear of missing out: pre­val­ence, dynamics, and con­sequences of ex­per­i­en­cing FOMO. In: Mo­tiv­a­tion and Emotion, 42/2018.
5. Przybyl­ski, Andrew K. & Murayama, Kou & DeHaan, Cody R. & Gladwell, Valerie: Mo­tiv­a­tion­al, emotional, and be­ha­vi­or­al cor­rel­ates of fear of missing out. In: Computers in Human Behaviour, 4/2013.